Title:  Family Pride Or, Purified by Suffering

Author:  Mary J. Holmes

Release Date:  April 12, 2005 [EBook #15607]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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Familypride

Or

Purif
ied by Suffering

ByMary J. Holmes

Author of “Dora Deane,” “The English Orphans,” “Homestead on the
Hillside,” “Tempest and Sunshine,” “Lena Rivers,” “Meadowbrook,” “Cousin
Maude,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER I.

The farmhouse at Silverton.

Uncle Ephraim Barlow, deacon of the orthodox church in Silverton, Massachusetts, was an old-fashioned man, clinging to the old-time customs of his fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon what he termed the “new-fangled notions” of the present generation.  Born and reared amid the rocks and hills of the Bay State, his nature partook largely of the nature of his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with many a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless, taken as a whole, was, like the wild New England scenery, beautiful and grand.  None knew Uncle Ephraim Barlow but to respect him, and at the church where he was a worshiper few would have been missed more than the tall, muscular man, with the long, white hair, who Sunday after Sunday walked slowly up the middle aisle to his accustomed seat before the altar, and who regularly passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily in token of approbation when a neighbor’s gift was larger than its wont, and gravely dropping in his own ten cents—­never more, never less—­always ten cents—­his weekly offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just five dollars and twenty cents.  And still Uncle Ephraim was not stingy, as the Silverton poor could testify, for many a load of wood and bag of meal found entrance to the doors where cold and hunger would have otherwise been, while to his minister he was literally a holder up of the weary hands, and a comforter in the time of trouble.

His helpmeet, Aunt Hannah, like that virtuous woman mentioned in the Bible, was one “who seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands, who riseth while yet it is night, and giveth meat to her household.”  Indeed, for this last stirring trait Aunt Hannah was rather famous, especially on Monday mornings, when her washing was invariably swinging on the line ready to greet the rising sun.